Summary
by littlebirds
Summary: In the Great Hall, the crowd is celebrating Reconstruction. Here, in this cupboard, things have just begun to come apart.


**Standard Disclaimer. Thanks.**

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The even tock, tock, tock grows louder, and then stops. My toes scrunch around the seam of my socks and my shoulders draw up tight as I watch the slow twisting of the knob. My eyes close. I breathe in as the high notes of a far-away melody spill through the opening door. I wait for the assault of gardenia to overtake the cold, mineral smell of stones and mortar, but it never comes.

I hear a tiny sigh, and open my eyes to a different silhouette, tall with willow limbs, standing still and peering down through the thin crack between the door and the frame. I wait for her to speak to me, to step inside. After all, it's not as if she's ever really needed an invitation before.

The seconds stretch, and I finally have to say, "Come in," before the crack creaks wider and she slides through. Her back to me, she is careful to pull the door as close to closed as possible. She turns, then pauses, looks back, and grips the knob to shut us in completely.

_Forty-two days_, I think, as the latch clicks quietly into place.

"Everyone's looking for you," she says.

I tilt my head up, catch sight of the flickering light curving around her cheek, then glance away.

"I know," I say. "That would be why I'm sitting in this broom cupboard." I gesture around. Sometimes the truth sounds so absurd when one speaks it aloud.

I wait as her eyes slide over the walls, over the cobwebs hanging heavy with dust in the corners, and then flit back to me.

"I didn't come to retrieve you. I only wanted to say hello."

"Oh," I mutter. "Well, hello." Her weight shifts at my tone, at my tight, fake smile. She's been told about me. Warned, no doubt. She looks down at her gown as her hands crumple it against her hips. I hear her gather her breath to try again.

"May I sit with you?" she asks. And, looking at her, my whole act suddenly collapses- because she is genuinely _asking_- standing there with her head down, waiting, as if I might tell her no.

I swallow past the squeezing in my throat and nod at the air beside me. Her profile is haloed in fire yellow as she passes in front of the candle burning beside the door. The rustle of netting and stiff fabric fills the space around us as she settles down next to me. As she moves, I catch a hint of the perfume she's wearing. It smells special and adult, obviously intended for candle-light and ball-rooms and champagne. For a second, I'm overcome with the awkwardness of sitting too close to a stranger. But then I see her fingers, the shapes of her wrists, and the feeling passes away.

"So, what's your poison?" She nods at the sweating tumbler on my other side.

"Water," I say, carefully lifting the dripping glass. "Would you like a sip?" The ice tinkles against the sides as I pass it to my other hand.

She tips her head and takes it from me. Her breath swirls into the glass and bounces against the water. The sounds of her swallows are close and wet.

_Six weeks_, I think.

She passes the glass back to me and her empty hand sinks to the floor. There, on the rim, is the perfect crescent moon of her lips.

Our ilk, we consider the moon. We're taught its effects on the elements and magic and men. I've been told that it acts as a shield, that its gravity keeps the seas churning and alive. I've heard that it governs what plants grow when, and how much a body will bleed. But what I really want to know, what I've never been told, is what would happen if it ever were to slip away.

I stare at the rim of the glass in my hand. It's hard to tell, exactly, by candle-light, but this looks like the colour girls refer to as 'mauve'.

I lift the glass to my lips, pressing against the sticky, mauve print, and tip the water into my mouth. Condensation trails cold down my wrist and soaks into my sleeve. I swallow and pull the glass away, rolling my bottom lip beneath my teeth. The taste she left behind, the vague flavour of wax and vanilla, coats the tip of my tongue.

Tonight, I shouldn't have bolted as soon as the two of them walked through the door. I shouldn't have behaved like a complete prat when she'd bothered to come find me. I shouldn't have felt the planet righting itself on its axis when I opened my eyes to her. And I certainly shouldn't give a damn about wherever else she may have left her lipstick this evening. Yet, I do.

The glass clinks against the stone as I set it down between us. I rest my hand at my side, millimetres from her cool, moist skin.

I don't wait for an invitation. I reach out with my grit-flecked little finger and curl it over hers. Her fingertip finds my knuckle, and there's a crinkling sound as she leans over and rests her head on my shoulder. I turn my face toward her. I close my eyes and breathe in.

Up close, this fragrance that rises around her is velvety and deep. It's burnt orange shot through with pink. It is one part peach skin, plush and ripe, one part tousled hair and rumpled, warm bed. This scent, it has nothing to do with the "evening of". This is all about the "morning after", the one I never thought to want, until it belonged to someone else.

Still, here, now, there's no defying the pull of this body beside me, and I relax into her as we lean against the wall. I turn my cheek into her soft, damp hair, blinking at the candle-light and swallowing back all the stupid things that want to spill out of my mouth. I try to reach for the words that will sum it all up without showing my hand. In my head, I edit and revise, stripping all these messy feelings down to their barest, most sanitized forms. I chop away all the details: The underlying dread and loss, the vertigo, the weeks of shame and traitorous longing. I pare away everything that really means anything to get to the most meagre shape of the truth, to get to the only version of this story I will ever be able to tell.

I part my lips and take in a lungful of air. Still, when the words come out, they are only a whisper.

"I missed you, Hermione."

It's just the two of us, here, simmering in this closet. My shirt is sticking to my back, and I feel a drop of sweat roll from the crown of my head, down my neck, and into my collar. Every second, it's hotter and hotter, but we lean in tighter and she twists her face into my shoulder. She makes a jagged, little sound that drills right through me, and then I hear her whisper my name.

"Harry," she says, "I missed you, too."


End file.
